Striking Deaths at Their Roots Assaying The Social Determinants of Extreme Labor Management Violence in Us Labor History18771947

https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2015.
24 Published online by Cambridge University Press

“Striking Deaths” at their Roots: Assaying the
Social Determinants of Extreme
Labor-Management Violence in US Labor
History—1877–1947
Paul F. Lipold
The seven decades framed by the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and institutionalization
of organized labor in the wake of World War II constituted a unique period of US labor
relations, one that labor historians have identified as the most violent and bloody of any
Western industrialized nation. Despite long-standing scholarly interest in the issues of
labor-management conflict, however, important questions regarding the causes of ex-
treme labor-management violence within the United States have never been adequately
addressed. In this paper, I utilize a recently compiled and unique data set of American
strike fatalities to statistically model the causes of extreme strike violence in the United
States. The time-series evidence suggests that picket-line violence increased in associ-
ation with (1) the struggle for and against unionization and (2) economic desperation
associated with tightening labor markets. The results also both depict the stultifying
effect of massacres and suggest that state support for labor’s right to organize tended
to decrease the likelihood of violence and vice versa. This paper not only thus provides
fresh insights into classic questions, but also offers a basis for both transhistorical and
international comparison.
Introduction
One century ago, beginning in the fall of 1913 through the summer of 1915, the
U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations convened with the purpose of subjecting
the conditions of American industrial relations to an objective and thorough inquiry,
such that the chronic and acute strife that had come to characterize American industrial
relations might be addressed before some greater social upheaval were to transpire
(Adams 1966: 32). The federal commission had been proposed in the wake of the
October 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building. The bombing took the lives
of 20 people and was ultimately determined to have been perpetrated by James and
John McNamara, two executive members of the American Federation of Labor (AFL),
who had launched the attack as a means of lashing out against the antiunion sentiments
held by the paper’s owner, Harrison Otis Gray (Adamic 1983; Adams 1966). The blast
was but one in a string of violent and fatal breaches of industrial normalcy within
the United States dating back three decades to the Molly Maguires of the 1870s.
I would like to thank Larry W. Isaac, Jill Quadagno, John Myles, Harry F. Dahms, Valerie Conner,
Andrew W. Martin and Marc Dixon for their helpful comments on earlier phases of this work. An earlier
version of this paper was presented at the American Sociological Association meetings in Philadelphia
(2005).
Social Science History 38, Winter 2014, pp. 541–575

© Social Science History Association, 2015 doi:10.1017/ssh.2015.24
https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2015.24 Published online by Cambridge University Press
542 Social Science History
Fatally violent encounters would continue to mar labor-management relations within

the United States for more than three decades thereafter. By the time U.S. picket-
line violence phased out during the post–World War II era, America’s bloody legacy
had been secured. Historians have identified the American labor movement as the
most contentious (Filipelli 1990) and bloody (Taft and Ross 1969) of any Western
industrialized nation. No less than 1,129 strike-related deaths have been recorded
within the United States during at least 244 violent strike events throughout the period
from 1877 to 1947 (Lipold and Isaac 2009: 189). Victims were claimed during both
interclass and intraclass struggles as otherwise peaceful strikes escalated into bloody
conflicts that pitted strikers against company guards, police, militia, and even federal
troops, on the one hand, and nonstrikers, replacement workers, or even rival union
members, on the other. The lives of workers were therein waged upon either joining
or ignoring a strike; and their deaths stand as both a manifestation of and testament to
the determination of all parties involved to assert and/or protect their perceived rights
to property and labor. Why were some of the participants willing to risk their lives?
Why were others willing to take them? In short, what caused the extreme violence on
America’s picket lines?
The correlated topics of strike-related violence and fatalities have long attracted the
attention of those seeking to maintain, transform, or merely understand the modern
industrial system. Large-scale violent episodes such as the Great Railway Strike of
1877 and the Haymarket Affair of 1886 alarmed industrialists in the late nineteenth
century (Hacker 1969: 257) and aroused suspicions of incipient Marxist and an-
archistic movements (Fusfeld 1984). The Commission on Industrial Relations was
inspired by a desire to mollify industrial relations during the Progressive Era (Adams
1966: 214). With the general cessation of strike-related violence post–World War II,
social scientists and historians have increasingly looked to labor’s turbulent past in an
effort to explain its moribund present (e.g., Fusfeld 1984; Goldstein 1978; Lipold and
Isaac 2009; Sexton 1991; Voss 1993), and constructed a rich tapestry of class-conflict
literature.
Yet, the study of extreme labor-management violence in the United States remains
inadequately tested (Lipold and Isaac 2009). As a political entity, for instance, the
congressional commission’s objectivity has been challenged by those disaffected by
its findings (Adams 1966), while the narrow temporal window and range of events
upon which their hearings had been based further impugned their generalizability.
Several subsequent, otherwise thoughtfully crafted scholarly studies focusing on the
determinants of strike-related violence have nonetheless problematically either (1)
failed to include the American case (e.g., Grant and Wallace 1991; Shorter and Tilly
1971; Snyder and Kelly 1976); (2) lacked the methodological rigor required of so-
ciological analysis (e.g., Goldstein 1978; Taft and Ross 1969); and/or (3) failed to
address the most extreme outcome of labor-management conflict—fatalities (e.g.,
Brinker 1985). Although most major theories of social movements have provided
conceptual space for the role of rebellion and repression (e.g., McAdam 1982; Piven
and Cloward 1979; Tilly 1978) and sought to explain violence in terms of rational
choice and tactical utility (e.g., Gamson 1990), they have by and large failed to explain
“Striking Deaths” at their Roots 543
why individuals were willing to risk their lives (Loveman 1998), or even the social
conditions most prominent in doing so.
Recent scholarship by Paul F. Lipold and Larry W. Isaac (2009) has challenged
the existent status quo by providing annual counts of 1,160 fatalities recorded on
American picket lines between the years 1870 and 1970—eclipsing the previous
best estimate (Taft and Ross 1969) for fatalities during this same period by some
400 deaths. They thereby not only problematized our preexistent understanding of
the historical level of violence within US labor-management relations, but so too
argued that until this violence that so characterized the formative era of American
industry and industrial relations has been adequately addressed our understanding of
the strength and trajectory of the American labor movement may well be dangerously
undertheorized. Was the violence critical to labor movement expansion? Or, did the
violence critically weaken the movement? How does such violence jibe with notions
of conservatism? Was such conservatism a cause or an outcome of the violence? What,
if anything, about the American labor movement was truly exceptional?
Nearly 100 years after the Commission on Industrial Relations, labor-management
strife has again captured America’s headlines.1 Thus far the mass protests of dis-
affected laborers have not precipitated bloodshed. That past strife may residually
structure contemporary outcomes warrants consideration (Lipold and Isaac 2009).
Yet our lingering ignorance as to the causes of past violence presents a conceptual
stumbling block to more fully understanding its consequences.
In this paper, I take the requisite step of reengaging a long-dormant yet timely line
of inquiry by presenting time-series regression evidence designed to systematically
gauge the causes of extreme labor-management violence in US history. I begin with a
brief overview of both the theoretical arguments regarding the suspected determinants
of extreme labor-management violence in the United States and empirical profile
thereof.
Literature Review
Speculation as to the violent strain within American labor relations has a long and
rampant history, propagated oftentimes by the very parties to the conflict. Laborers,
labor leaders, industrialists, and politicians alike dominated the discourses on violence
within and against the labor movement from its onset during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century. Objectivity was seldom their primary concern, as through what
might be dismissed as little more than propaganda, rhetoric, and/or conjecture they
sought to affect the course of events as well as the prevailing structure of labor relations
(Jeffreys-Jones 1974) oftentimes through the disparagement of one another: their con-
clusions extrapolated from a fragmented historical record—contradictory evidence
1. 2011 witnessed two massive waves of labor protests within the United States, including the spring
rallies against regressive legislative enactments in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio and more recent
Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.
conveniently dismissed by partisan adherents in their own narrow self- and/or group
interests. Over time, a patchwork of historical and sociological investigations into the
causes of picket-line conflicts both within and beyond US borders have enlightened the
discourse. Yet, a lack of consensus remains. As discussed in the following text, it re-
mains possible to delineate five causal narratives/theoretical perspectives. For descrip-
tive purposes, I have labeled these five perspectives: (1) labor militancy; (2) employer
intransigence; (3) market reformist; (4) political opportunity; and (5) situational.
Labor Militancy
The labor militancy perspective emphasized the role that one or another group of
workers, union organizations, and/or labor leaders played in the proliferation of
strike violence. It took root in the late nineteenth century, when speculation as to the
unprecedented and as of yet unmatched violence of the Great Railway Strike of 1877
centered upon the criminal makeup of “frenzied mobs” and “foreign” rabble-rousers
(Bruce 1970; Wilentz 1989), and again during the dubious trial, conviction, and
execution of several Chicago anarchists in the aftermath of the Haymarket bombing
of 1886 (Adamic 1983). The very term labor violence exemplifies the hegemonic
control that owners successfully exerted over the early discourses regarding labor-
management disputes and implies that violence emanates from within the working
class. Such assumptions inspired many of the court decisions rendered against labor
during the last quarter of the nineteenth century (Avery 1988–89) and antiunion
rhetoric espoused by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in the
first quarter of the twentieth century. In general, its adherents railed against “un-
American” socialists and warned against the “tyranny of labor” while espousing
the virtues of laissez-faire capitalism and vices of many if not all unions (see also,
Hacker 1969; Haydu 1999; Isaac 2002, 2008).
Employer Intransigence
The antimanagement perspective emphasized “employer intransigence,” that is, the
willingness of many employers to either provoke or utilize violence as a means of
deterring the union movement. In fact, some have argued that what was truly excep-
tional about US industrial relations were not its labor unions but rather its exception-
ally antiunion management (Goldstein 1978; Haydu 1999; Jacoby 1991; Voss 1993).
Particular tactics, such as the recruitment of strikebreakers and deployment of armed
guards have been argued to inflame otherwise peaceful strikes, causing strikers to lash
out in a sense of frustration and betrayal (Gitelman 1973). But the main emphasis was
neither to explain nor justify violence by strikers, internecine or otherwise. Clearly,
both capital and labor tactically employed violence. But who was responsible for
the bulk of the violence? Contrary to the antiunion message that was being pressed
by the employers, Bruce Johnson (1976: 96) has argued that, “Most violence sur-
rounding American labor history was instigated by elites, business or governmental”
(see also, Lipold and Isaac 2009; Wallace 1970–71). No major labor union within
the United States ever openly advocated violence (Taft and Ross 1969: 282). Rather,
the antimanagement narrative continues, the forces of repression were responsible
for the vast majority of strike site killings (Tilly 1978), and, most frequently, their
attacks were unprovoked. Trade union journals, sympathizers, and apologists thus
made much ado of events such as the massacres in Lattimer, Pennsylvania (1897) and
Ludlow, Colorado (1914), whereupon vigilantes in the first instance and state militia
in the second mercilessly fired upon unarmed strikers and their supporters.
Market Reformist
The chief thrust of the reformist perspective has always been to look beyond the
behavior of particular individuals and groups to the systemic roots of labor discord.
Industrial violence was argued to have been catalyzed by vagaries of the market,
including structural unemployment, wage deflation, unsafe work environments, eco-
nomic downturns, wealth disparities, and similar trappings of class divisions and
corporate greed. The reformist critique necessarily problematizes various aspects
of market functions and the overarching structure of the political economy more
generally. Considerable research has emphasized the economic impetus for labor-
management violence, that is, the impact of general economic variables on strikers’
standard of living and corporate bottom lines. The obvious theoretical assumption
regarding workers is that they react violently to conditions of absolute or relative de-
privation. The Davies J. Curve suggests that the likelihood of violence increases when
employee expectations of rising wages and benefits are not met (Fishback 1995: 431).
Boswell and Dixon (1993) have claimed to find support for Marx’s contention that
levels of economic exploitation condition rebellion. A corollary argument concern-
ing elite violence suggests that elite tolerance ebbs during periods of economic crisis,
thereby increasing the likelihood of repression and subsequent fatalities insofar as elite
legitimacy remains high and suitable target groups have been identified (Goldstein
1978: 559). Such economic crises, moreover, may be motivated either internally (e.g.,
an economic depression or other investment crisis) or externally (e.g., a foreign war).
Political Opportunity
The US Commission on Industrial Relation’s final report was issued in August 1915. It
identified the following four major causes of unrest: (1) unjust distribution of wealth;
(2) high unemployment and the denial of an opportunity to earn a living; (3) inequality
before the law; and (4) the denial of labor’s right to organize into independent unions
and collectively bargain (Adams 1966: 216–17), thereby fettering the chorus of not just
economic, but also political reform. The political opportunity perspective emphasized
the effect that government officials and policies have had upon labor-management con-
flicts both directly and indirectly. Direct interventions such as injunctions and troop
deployments were perhaps the most palpable. Labor law (Taft and Ross 1969), policy
initiatives (Fusfeld 1984), and the attitudes of officials (Goldstein 1978) at all levels
of government have also been argued to influence labor militancy, employer intransi-
gence, and market conditions. As the ubiquitous third party to labor relations, agents
of the state have both actively participated in the meting out of strike violence and the
brokerage of labor peace. The extent and direction of that influence, however, remains
somewhat ambiguous. Direct interventions have been argued to both reduce (Petro
1978) and incite (Gitelman 1973) strike violence. So too have broader policy initia-
tives. The New Deal was followed by a wave of violence while Taft-Hartley was not.
Other relevant variables include the degree of openness to the political system, the
character of the prevailing legal regime, and the regime’s legitimacy. The openness
of the system refers to the access to political power within a particular system and
the distribution of power therein (McAdam 1982). The legal regime refers to the
constellation of laws and juridical decisions that govern and structure labor relations
(McCammon 1993a). Legitimacy refers to the perceived validity of and satisfaction
with the existing regime. In general, an inverse U-shaped relationship is argued to
exist whereby rebellion is least likely in both extremely open and closed regimes
and most likely in moderately open regimes in which the government’s legitimacy is
low (see, e.g., Boswell and Dixon 1993). Conversely, repression is most likely within
an extremely closed regime and/or when a challenger group’s political power and
legitimacy are low (Piven and Cloward 1979).
Situational
By focusing upon violent strikes, it may be possible to lose sight of the fact that even in
the United States, violent strikes, particularly those involving fatalities, were relatively
rare events. The annual ratio of US strikes involving fatalities rarely exceeded 1 percent
of the overall strike total even during its most violent era (Lipold 2003: 82). Price
V. Fishback (1995: 444) thus admonished his audience that, “any examination of
violence (during strikes) has to consider that the norm was no violence at all.” A
fifth causal narrative, while not substantively distinct from the other four, nonetheless
shifts our focus from the individual and macrolevels of analysis to that of the event,
thereby seeking to identify specific “situational” factors that precipitated extreme
outcomes.
The goal of the strike as well as the number of issues at stake (Shorter and Tilly
1971; Snyder and Kelly 1976) has been identified as an important determining factor.
Strikes for higher wages and improved working conditions were less likely to lead
to violence than strikes involving union recognition and/or shop-control (Taft and
Ross 1969). The size and duration of strikes have been positively correlated with
violence (Snyder and Kelly 1976). So too have the presence of strikebreakers, armed
guards, and state militia (Gitelman 1973), and/or similar instances whereupon au-
thorities confront strikers (Tilly 1978). The industry within which the strike occurs
may also be an important factor as strike-related fatalities within the United States
have been heavily concentrated within specific extraction and transportation industries
(see Lipold 2003; Lipold and Isaac 2009). These same industries comprised the core
upon which economic expansion and integration of national markets were becoming
increasingly dependent and seems to suggest that violent outcomes were correlated
with the “disruptive potential” of situational strife and militancy (see, e.g., Perrone
1984).
And so these perspectives have evolved over the course of the past 135 years: each
historically grounded. Yet each are largely untested and unproved against one another,
enabled along their disparate trajectories, at least in part, by a body of research overly
reliant upon extrapolation and inference to have adequately assayed their relative
validity. It seems reckless to assume that the conclusions drawn from studies of
other less violent nations should necessarily apply to the American case, especially
in so far as labor historians have identified American labor-management relations
as an exceptionally violent outlier (Gitelman 1973; Sexton 1991). Yet, none of the
major sociological studies that have been designed to infer the causal determinants
of violence during strikes examined the United States (e.g., Grant and Wallace 1991;
Shorter and Tilly 1971; Snyder and Kelly 1976).
Nor, however, is that to valorize existent studies of violence within and against
the American labor movement, those very studies which have intoned its “excep-
tionally” violent character (e.g., Goldstein 1978; Taft and Ross 1969). As insightful,
provocative, and compelling as many of their arguments and characterizations may
seem, they have been derived from what may at best be described as fragmentary
historical evidence, thereby lacking the scope and/or reliability required for either
sound theoretical development and/or statistical inference and modeling (Lipold and
Isaac 2009).
Conversely, case histories involving specific industries (e.g., Fishback 1995) and
events (e.g., Bruce 1970) afford greater detail at the expense of limited generalization.
The concern is all the more acute because the period in question comprised an era
during which the economy of the United States metamorphosed from that of a post-
bellum agrarian society to one of international industrial preeminence. Not only was
the transformation historically unique, but the very structure of capitalist relations,
nature of work, character of employment and industry, and composition of the labor
force—all potential determinants of violent strike outcomes—were in a constant state
of flux. Given the disparities in findings between these studies and more generalized
concerns of inferring causality across temporal and spatial horizons (Isaac 1997;
Isaac and Griffin 1989; Isaac and Lipold 2012), we can have little confidence that
their results are applicable to the entirety of the United States case throughout the
time in question (see Snyder 1976).
Insulated from sufficient temporally and/or spatially sensitive comparative analysis,
varied explanations as to the causes and character of American labor-management
violence have proliferated. In an effort to assay their relative merit, this paper seeks to
hold them to a common standard, a measure unavailable until only recently (Lipold
and Isaac 2009; Sexton 1991). Lipold and Isaac’s strike fatality series, as described
in the following text, presents just such a standard. It is to an overview of both the
descriptive and analytical utility of that data that I now turn.
FIGURE 1. US strike fatalities per year, 1870–1970
Profiling US Strike Mortality
Charles Tilly (1978: 188) neatly summarized the promise and perils of the study of
collective violence more than three decades ago,
The occurrence of damage to persons or objects gives us some small assurance that
at least one of the parties to the collective action took it seriously. More important,
violence makes collective action visible: authorities, participants, and observers
tend to set down some record of their actions, reactions, and observations. Col-
lective violence therefore serves as a convenient tracer of major alterations in
collective action as a whole.
To the topic of labor-management relations within the United States, the Lipold-
Isaac data set serves as one such tracer, evidence to which owners and workers during
the formative years of American industrial capitalism pressed their perceived rights to
property and labor with grave seriousness. A graphical representation of the annual
fatality data provided by Lipold and Isaac (2009) has been presented in figure 1.2
The period began with the single most violent year ever recorded in American labor
history, the year of the Great Strike of 1877 wherein an estimated 100 individuals lost
2. Lipold and Isaac (2009: 192).

their lives.3 After the initial flurry of 1877, violence reignited with the Haymarket
bombing and other events of 1886. Fatalities remained common to the labor move-
ment throughout the 1890s and Progressive Era, peaking in 1894 and again 20 years
later in 1914, the years of the tumultuous Pullman strikes and Ludlow mine wars,
respectively. The general upward trend that lasted from 1895 through 1914 abated
during World War I. After a brief onslaught of fatalities accompanying the employers’
open-shop campaign immediately following the war, strike fatalities became generally
uncommon before violence was again renewed during the New Deal era. With the
advent of World War II, strike-related violence again abated never to return to its
elevated prewar levels.
The contour of strike fatalities in figure 1 can neither dispel nor uphold the various
causal arguments delineated in the preceding text. It does provide the opportunity to
subject a variety of hypotheses regarding the social roots of extreme strike violence
to systematic empirical analysis. In so far as they may be deemed suitable measures
of US strike violence, they appropriately serve as dependent variables in the mod-
els discussed in the following text. I therefore provide a brief recapitulation of this
argument.
Data Compilation
The Lipold-Isaac count of 1,160 annualized US strike fatalities (FATALITIES) oc-
curring from 1870 to 1970 was amassed through a content analysis, cross-reference,
and supplementation of six other prominent sources of US strike violence and fatality
data (Filipelli 1990; Fishback 1995; Goldstein 1978; Jeffreys-Jones 1974; Steuben
1950; Taft and Ross 1969), in such fashion as to balance the information, accuracy,
and professionalism of these authors, on the one hand, against possible omissions,
biases, and errors, on the other.
As described by Lipold and Isaac (2009: 180–82), Philip Taft and Philip Ross
(1969) and Robert Justin Goldstein (1978) had provided the two most comprehensive
works on violence within and against the labor movement, respectively. Taft and
Ross’s study was the most inclusive, providing a general survey of violent strikes
and related events across industries from the 1870s through the early post–World
War II era while Goldstein’s study of political repression focused upon elite violence
and the plight of radical segments within the labor movement. As general surveys
of violence and repression, neither intended to provide complete accounts of strike-
related fatalities. Despite accounting for more than 700 strike-related deaths, their
counts self-admittedly, “grossly understate(d) the casualties” (Taft and Ross 1969:
380). Much the same is true of Ronald Filipelli’s (1990) encyclopedic account of 254
of the most “pivotal” conflicts in American labor history. Although reports of deaths
and injuries are occasionally included in his event synopses, no concerted effort was
3. The first deadly strike in the United States may well have occurred in 1850, when two striking tailors
were killed by police (Montgomery 1993: 67). Prior to 1877, however, “labor violence” had generally been
considered sporadic and nonthreatening (Wilentz 1989: 130).
made to include all such incidents; while his focus on large strikes systematically
excluded fatalities known to have occurred in smaller, lower-profile strikes.
Though more modest in terms of scope, the remaining key sources were more
clearly focused on strike deaths. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’s (1974) study identified 308
fatalities during the period from 1890 to 1909 while offering an interindustry compar-
ison of total mortality figures by location and year. As reproduced in Steuben (1950),
the Labor Research Association (LRA) reported the date, location, and names of more
than 130 deaths of workers and labor organizers killed during strikes and organizing
related functions between the years 1934 and 1949. Finally, Price V. Fishback (1995)
gave a brief synopsis of more than 60 violent strikes and concomitant deaths within
the bituminous coal industry between the years 1877 and 1927. His list was compiled
through a survey of secondary sources that included both Taft and Ross (1969) and
Jeffreys-Jones (1974).
The fatality series was derived according to what Lipold and Isaac defined as a
“strike first” approach, whereby a list of fatal strike events was first constructed and
then “best estimates” of the total fatality counts for each event were determined.
Fashioned according to the varied goals and scopes of each project, the founda-
tional works overlapped in regard to certain events and perhaps altogether obscured
others. Their combined fatality count was thus marred by inconsistencies and miss-
ing data. Numerous case studies and other supplementary works including online
searches of five major national newspapers including the New York Times (1870–
1970), Chicago Daily Tribune (1872–1970), Washington Post (1877–1970), Atlanta
Constitution (1868–1939), and Los Angeles Times (1881–1970) were thus employed
to corroborate evidence, reveal oversights, and otherwise mediate disputes. Where
discrepancies remained, the total fatality count registered per each event represented
the most conservative estimate barring strong evidence to the contrary. Given the
efforts and safeguards that went into the project, the Lipold-Isaac strike-fatality data
set is the most accurate, reliable, and comprehensive presently available.
Data Utility: Strike Fatalities as Dependent Variable
Three issues inherent to the FATALITIES measure constrain its utility. First, strike
violence and strike fatalities are not functional equivalents. Strike violence is a rather
nebulous concept for which pundits of varying stripes have long sought to establish
qualifying parameters and gradations. Physical assault has generally been recognized
as the most egregious.4 But the destruction of property has also been included, as
4. Grant and Wallace’s (1991: 1133) study of Canadian strike violence employed the following ordinally
ranked scale of escalating strike violence: peaceful conduct = 1, blocked plant entrance = 2, threatened
to damage property or injure persons = 3, did actual damage to property = 4, and did actual damage to
persons = 5.
FIGURE 2. US strike fatalities per 100 total strikes, 1880–1970
have acts of intimidation.5 Strike fatalities are an outcome of strike violence in its
most extreme form. Apart from the profile of strike fatalities, a veritable mountain
of nonfatal injuries, property damage, or even emotional strife that accompanied not
only fatal but nonfatal violent strikes likely lurk beneath the visible surface. Some
historical accounts offered damage reports and casualty figures that included injuries,
particularly for the largest strikes. I have found these to be sporadic at best. But this
is not particularly vexing. Extreme strike violence is in and of itself a worthy topic of
sociological analysis (Tilly 1978; White 1993). Therefore, I focus upon strike fatalities
while taking care not to extrapolate these findings to its less visceral dimensions.
But even within such narrowly defined parameters, is the most violent year best
conceived as that in which the highest number of fatalities was recorded, or in which
the likelihood of being killed was highest? The ratio of strike fatalities per 100 strikes
(FATALITYRATIO) has been provided in figure 2.6 The year 1877 again stands out
as the most violent, so much so that it has been excluded due to scale distortion.7
As with FATALITIES, smaller peaks again cluster around the late 1880s, 1894, late
Progressive Era, early 1920s, and early New Deal period. The year 1877 aside, the
5. State and federal judges between the years 1880 and 1932 issued injunctions against strikes for not
only violence against persons and property, but also the mere act of picketing, which some judges deemed
immanently if not inherently violent (Hattam 1992: 139; Petro 1978: 17).
6. Lipold and Isaac 2009: 193.
7. See Lipold and Isaac (2009: 192) for the graphical presentation.
likelihood of being killed upon a picket line was greatest in 1922. This conclusion
differs only slightly from a comparison with FATALITIES as seen in figure 1.
A third issue derives from the fact that FATALITIES constitutes a national aggre-
gate: such that (1) no distinctions are made between various categories of victims;
and (2) the individual events have been dissociated from their microlevel contexts.
The situation is partly reflective of available sources, which specifically categorized
slightly less than one-half of all the recorded victims, and otherwise provided scarcely
enough information to ascertain the year, industry, location, and best estimate of total
fatalities for individual strikes (see Lipold 2003; Lipold and Isaac 2009). For instance,
for the years from 1870 to 1947, only 51.7 percent of the total strike fatalities over the
period could be categorized by victim status (Lipold and Isaac 2009: 200). Of those,
385 (64 percent) were strikers, labor organizers, or sympathizers, 71 (11.8 percent)
were strikebreakers and/or nonstriking workers, 36 (6 percent) were either company
guards or private agents hired by the company, 37 (6.1 percent) were federal-, state-,
or local-level law enforcement agents, 61 (10.1 percent) were innocent bystanders,
and 12 (2.1 percent) were either company executives or government officials. Rather
than limiting themselves to a count of only those who had been either specifically
categorized and/or involved in strikes with rich historical detail, therefore, Lipold and
Isaac (2009) elected to utilize the generic total as the best overall proxy of extreme
labor-management conflict.
There are clearly advantages and limitations of such a measure. On the one hand,
aggregate data are readily amenable to tests of macrolevel politico-economic vari-
ables such as unemployment rates and party dominance ratios (e.g., the proportion of
Republicans in Congress). On the other, suspected microlevel determinants such as
who/what group was responsible for the bulk of the violence and/or what situational
determinants tended to precipitate violent events cannot be measured at strike level
(as might seem appropriate), but where applicable, must instead be proxied by other
aggregated data.8
Macrolevel attempts to address what are arguably microlevel matters may appear
unsatisfactory to either those seeking to indict particular groups/organizations, or
those convinced as to the primacy of situational determinants. The general thrust of
the scholarly literature, however, recognizes a multitiered causal structure of strike
violence, including macrolevel economic, political, and institutional factors (see, e.g.,
Grant and Wallace 1991; Snyder and Kelly 1976). In lieu of a more detailed set of
data, it makes sense to seize upon the opportunity for assessing the effects of both
macrolevel determinants and microlevel proxies, remaining always cognizant as to
the perils of extrapolating beyond our means.
8. Neither these circumstances nor strategies are particularly novel to the study of American strike
violence. To paraphrase Snyder and Kelly (1976: 132), it sometimes becomes necessary “to use highly
aggregated analyses because information on hypothesized determinants is not available at the level of the
individual event.”
Explanatory Variables
The independent variables introduced in the following text were selected to parsimo-
niously model the “labor militancy,” “employer intransigence,” “market reformist,”
and “political opportunity” perspectives outlined in the preceding text in accordance
with the empirical parameters inherent to the FATALITIES measure.9 The primary
concern is thus not to account specifically for who committed the violence, per se, but
rather the practices and/or conditions that incited it. The descriptive statistics and
the range of available data for each series have been summarized in the Appendix.
Labor Militancy Variables
Strike rates and union density are common indicators of labor strength and militancy.
TOTALSTRIKES is simply a count of strikes recorded in the United States for a given
year10 divided by 100 and POLSTRIKES11 is a similar measure of strikes for union
representation. Both are suspected to have positive influence on FATALITIES. Union
militancy, meanwhile, is a conventional measure of union strength and cohesiveness,
operationalized in this study as the percentage of nonagricultural employees who
belong to unions (see Troy 1965: 2). That having been said, it is not the measure
of union density, per se, that will be included, but measures of the change in union
density from one year to the next. I suspect that the greater the change in union density
in either direction, the higher the level of violence: as a result of a strong offensive by
labor, on the one hand, or a strong offensive by management, on the other. As a result
of the competing logic, the series will be directionalized, such that percentage changes
up (CHDENSITYUP) and percentage changes down (CHDENSITYDOWN) will be
estimated separately (see Griffin and Isaac 1992). The notion that the skill level of
strikers positively correlates to strike violence owing to the increased vulnerability of
the unskilled to replacements as demonstrated in Grant and Wallace’s (1991) study of
strikes in Canada is theoretically compelling. Unfortunately, a lack of data regarding
9. Owing to both the level of analysis pursued in this study and the fact that the “situational” perspective
was not mutually exclusive of the remaining four, it has not been modeled as a distinct variable cate-
gory in the statistical models presented, but remains manifest in an albeit aggregate-level form using the
POLSTRIKES, AFAMSTRKBRKING, and TOTALIMMIGRANT variables.
10. The federal government under the auspices of first the US Commissioner of Labor and then the
Department of Labor gathered data for the years 1881–1905 and 1916–47, respectively (Griffin 1939:
117). The intervening historical gap was abridged through a combination of official data from some
individual states and estimations of others, which have been conventionally adopted by those engaged in
strike analysis (Edwards 1981: 301–5).
11. Like the count of total strikes, the count of strikes for unionization was provided for the years 1881–
1906 and 1916–14. However, suitable approximations have not been determined for the statistical gap. In
order to approximate this data, I first created a ratio measure of POLSTRIKES/TOTALSTRIKES, using
linear interpolation to bridge the statistical gap for this proxy series. Then, I calculated an approximate
value of POLSTRIKES for the missing years: adjusting the value of TOTALSTRIKES by the proportionate
value suggested by the ratio of political to total strikes.
the ratio of skilled to unskilled laborers within the US workforce during this era
prevents a direct assessment of this affect in the US case. That having been said, the
measures of strikebreakers and immigration levels introduced in the following text
provide at least some indirect proxies.
Employer Intransigence Variables

One of the more prominent strikebreaking techniques involved attempts to resume
production without the striking workers by using a skeleton crew of nonstrikers and/or
strikebreakers (e.g., Whatley 1993). Another popular strategy involved invoking gov-
ernment intervention, either as injunctive relief against strikes (see Forbath 1991;
Friedman 1988: 416; McCammon 1993b) and/or troop deployments (Cooper 1977;
Hacker 1969; Harring 1983; Johnson 1976; Reinders 1977). AFAMSTRKBRKING,
an annual count of events in which African American strikebreakers were deployed
(see Whatley 1993), was utilized as an indicator of the former. INJUNCTIONS,
a count of injunctions granted by state and federal courts against striking laborers
inflated by a factor of 8.25 (see Forbath 1991; McCammon 1993b; Petro 1978) was
utilized as an indicator of the latter. As measures of employer intransigence, both
are expected to have a positive influence on FATALITIES. Given that many such
injunctions were issued under the guise of preempting picket-line violence, however,
an interesting counterargument as to the dampening effect of INJUNCTIONS could
also be made (Petro 1978).
Whence public forces were unavailable, employers also had a myriad of private
police agencies and services upon which to call, either to protect property and nonstrik-
ers, or to heavy-handedly crush picket lines (Weiss 1986). The NAM was renowned
for its virulently antiunion stance (Griffin et al. 1986) and thus serves as a proxy
for employer countermobilization. Operationalized as membership within the NAM
per annum (see Gable 1950) divided by 1,000, NAM is thus also expected to have a
positive impact on FATALITIES.
Market-Reformist Variables
The Progressives asserted that neither laborers nor their unions were inherently vi-
olent. Rather, they reasoned that they were driven to extremes by the vagaries and
excesses of the emergent capitalist industrial system (Jeffreys-Jones 1974: 566–67).
I thus included three variables as measures of desperation and otherwise economic
motif. UNEMPLOYMENT is a standard measure of labor market conditions, op-
erationalized in this instance as the annual percentage of the civilian labor force
without work (see US Bureau of the Census 1975: 135). On the one hand, unem-
ployment serves as a measure of general economic health and well-being. On the
other, given the long recognized association between fluctuating levels of unemploy-
ment and union militancy, it also serves as a measure of working-class strength. More
specifically, as unemployment increases, overall levels of union membership decrease
and vice versa. One might therefore expect that increasing militancy associated with
high employment translates into increased violence. But in another sense, this seems
counterintuitive as high levels of unemployment and concomitant levels of economic
hardship are expected to increase not only interclass tensions but fuel incendiary
competition between competing groups of workers—both suspected motivators of
increased violence. In so far as both high and low levels of unemployment arguably
increase the likelihood of violence, net their effect of levels of strikes, it thus makes
sense to test for both linear and curvilinear relationships.
Workers have also been argued to react violently to stagnant and/or declining wages
(see Fishback 1995). Operationalized as the percentage change down in real wages
per annum12 and coded as “0” for nonchange and positive change years (Griffin
and Isaac 1992), WAGESDOWN is also expected to have a positive influence on
FATALITIES. A count of the total number of immigrants to the United States per
annum divided by 10,000 (TOTALIMMIGRANT) has also been included. As both
increased competition for available work (Jenkins 1978) and as a potential pool of
strikebreaking candidates (see, e.g., Leonard 1979), the flow of immigrants is expected
to positively influence FATALITIES.13
Political Opportunity Variables

The readiness of strikers to commit acts of violence is believed to be influenced by an
array of malleable considerations including the perceived legitimacy of the reigning
politico-economic regime (Piven and Cloward 1979; Tilly 1978), the openness of
that same regime to their concerns (Boswell and Dixon 1993), various legal and
juridical precedents that structure their behavior (Taft and Ross 1969), and the threat
of repression (Grant and Wallace 1991; Piven and Cloward 1979). The likelihood of
repression, meanwhile, has been argued to vary on the basis of another constellation of
considerations that are also forever in flux. A noncomprehensive list would include the
attitudes of government officials and their degree of coordination with industrial elites
(Friedman 1988; Fusfeld 1984 Goldstein 1978), the power of the relevant authority
structure both absolutely and relative to that of the challenger groups (McAdam 1982;
Tilly 1978), support from the middle classes, and a whole host of extraneous politico-
economic factors ranging from the influence of foreign investors (Oppenheimer and
Canning 1979–80) to the prerogatives of foreign war.
REPUBCONGRESS, the percentage of Republicans in Congress per annum,14 is
expected to reflect the influence of business interests on the government, the willing-
ness of the government to repress labor disputes on the behalf of business, and, as
a result, strike violence. Conversely, one should expect that labor militancy is most
12. This measure was calculated based on data presented by the US Bureau of the Census (1975: 164,
col. 725).
13. The source of the data for both WAGESDOWN and TOTALIMMIGRANT was the US Bureau of the
Census (1975), columns 725 and 120, respectively.
14. This measure was calculated based on data presented by the US Bureau of the Census (1975: 1083).
likely expressed when the likelihood of repression is at its least, thereby increasing the
range of potential opportunities for violence. One might thus expect a concentration of
fatalities when REPUBCONGRESS is near either of its extremes, thereby warranting
a test for curvilinear function (see, e.g., Boswell and Dixon 1993; Snyder 1976).
A series of temporal dummy variables has also been included. Each stands as an
open admonition that although the entire period from 1877 to 1947, bracketed by
the Great Strike and Taft-Hartley, constituted a transformative and violent era in the
overall trajectory of relations between labor, business, and government (Lipold and
Isaac 2009), the entire course of events passed through several distinctive phases.
Each of these phases, or regimes, was unique in terms of prevailing attitudes; strate-
gies; legislative enactments; judicial interpretations; political, economic, and social
developments; and/or some combination thereof.
WARYEARS. World War I inaugurated an era of unprecedented cooperation and

coordination between big labor, big business, and big government. The accord was en-
couraged by a federal government that was preparing to be involved in an international
military endeavor, and as a result, one that was seeking to avoid the disruptive effects
that labor strife might have on munitions and other essential production (Weinstein
1968: 216). The cooperative approach between employers and conservative unions
included no-strike pledges, and thus arguably reduced all forms of labor conflict,
including fatalities. Leftist labor organizations (e.g., the International Workers of
the World [IWW]), however, were alienated from both the war and wartime pact,
becoming instead the targets of repression (Fusfeld 1984; Weinstein 1968).
With the end of the war in sight, the cooperative pattern had already begun to break
down, not to be fully resurrected until World War II. In an attempt to measure this
wartime effect, I thus created a binary variable WARYEARS (years = t), which was
coded as (1 = war year, 0 = otherwise)—war year having been defined as any given
year during which the United States was officially engaged in either of the two world
wars (1917–19 and 1941–45): both of which were assumed to have a similar effect
upon the likelihood of strike violence.
REGIME1. The remaining dichotomous variables represent a sequence of tem-

poral regimes. They mark transitory phases within the overall development of labor-
management relations, but they are not in and of themselves conceived as static blocks
of time. Change was constant even within periods. The years within each block were
none the less sufficiently similar to constitute particular regimes: predominant patterns
of labor, employer, and government interactions within evolving legal-juridical con-
texts. The regimes, meanwhile, were sufficiently dissimilar in their expected impacts
on lethal strike outcomes to warrant juxtaposition.
REGIME115 spanned the years from 1877 to 1894. It included some of the most
renowned labor clashes in US history such as the Haymarket Affair and the Battle
15. REGIME1 has actually not been included within the regression models detailed despite its theoretical
relevance due to a lack of data during that era for many suspected key determinants.
of Homestead, and was bracketed by two of the most calamitous railroad strikes
of national magnitude—the Great Strike and Pullman. The first, the Great Railway
Strike of 1877, alerted capitalists to threats that militant workers posed to the emergent
and increasingly integrated capitalist industrial order (Hacker 1969: 258). The most
prominent response to what came to be known as “the labor question,” or the prob-
lematization of labor, was a desire among many employers and prominent citizens to
hone the means of repression (Isaac 2002; Reinders 1977; Shefter 1986). The judi-
ciary, meanwhile, constituted the most prominent government actors, as they sought
to define and enforce particular forms and standards of labor protests and behavior
(see Hattam 1992; McCammon 1993a).
REGIME2. Although socialist and other fringe anticapitalist groups attributed in-
cidents of mass labor violence to the vagaries of the emerging capitalist industrial
order prior to 1895, it was not until after the Pullman Strike that a reformist discourse
achieved some prominence (Wiebe 1967). In the wake of that event, the National Civic
Federation (NCF), representing mostly large corporations within heavily capitalized
industries, was formed. Symbolically, the NCF included Samuel Gompers of the AFL
on its executive board, and advocated collective bargaining with conservative unions
as the best long-term strategy to avoiding costly work stoppages and thwarting the
indigenous Socialist movement. Although ardently opposed by organizations such
as NAM and other vehemently antiunion employers who continued their oftentimes
open war against unions of all stripes, it was the emergent reformist agenda that
characterized the period from 1895 to 1918 and ultimately prevailed, assisted by both
Progressive elements within and aside from the government and historical imperatives
associated with the World War I (see Fusfeld 1984; Kolko 1963; Weinstein 1968).
REGIME3. Repression of the American Left continued into the postwar Red Scare,
punctuated by the Palmer Raids of 1921. But mainstream labor unions also came to
realize how tenuous their wartime gains had been. The big government–big business–
big labor nexus had already begun to unravel before the Treaty of Paris had been
signed, replaced instead by a war against organized labor that was waged aggressively
throughout the third temporal regime (1919–31). The opening salvo was fired against
the steelworkers, whose strike for union recognition in 1919 was crushed with the help
of the Pennsylvania Coal and Iron Police (Adamic 1983: 288–91; Goldstein 1978:
152; Weinstein 1968). Employer intransigence spread to other industries as businesses
sought to regain their freedom from government and independent unions (Goldstein
1978: 5), launching instead a new campaign for corporate responsibility and company
unions under the guise of a voluntaristic “American Plan.” The heretofore supportive
Wilson administration, meanwhile, became first fixated on its international agenda,
and then replaced by a series of Republican regimes; and court interventions into labor
disputes increased dramatically, such that the phenomenon became known as “govern-
ment by injunction” (Forbath 1991). The antagonistic environment had a suffocating
effect on union militancy, dramatically reducing the incidents of strikes and attempts
at unionization (Bernstein 1960; Brody 1960; Griffin et al. 1986; McCammon 1993a;
Montgomery 1987).
REGIME4. Of course, labor militancy had not been vanquished altogether. Leftist
unions continued in their attempts to organize the masses of unskilled workers but
unions as a whole had little success until the postwar conservative regime had been
swept from office during the 1932 elections. Democratic Party support for organized
labor and concrete legislative victories characterized the early stages of this fourth
and final subperiod (1932–47). The successes included the Norris-La Guardia Act
of 1932 that brought an end to “government by injunction,” and the Wagner Act
two years later that afforded legal sanction to the formation of trade unions with the
right to bargain collectively (see Wallace et al. 1988). These initiatives were greeted
with a wave of organization efforts, on the one hand, and fierce resistance by many
employers, on the other (Taft and Ross 1969). But by the late 1930s, the era of open
conflict along America’s picket lines was gradually coming to an end. As a response,
in part, to the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the Wagner Act’s constitutionality,
employer resistance to unionization shifted from a strategic emphasis on repression
to that of institutionalization and containment, much along the lines that the NCF had
advocated several decades earlier. The imminence of World War II was also a likely
contributing factor. Yet, even after US and Allied military victory had been assured,
labor’s most crucial postwar defeat came not in the form of bloodied strikers but
management-friendly legislation: the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 having circumscribed
many of the labor movement’s most effective tactics, leaders, and New Deal victories
(Goldfield 1987; Lipold and Isaac 2009; McCammon 1994; Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin
2003; Wallace et al. 1988).
THREAT LEVEL. Finally, what better indicator as to the likelihood of aggression

and/or repression than recent examples thereof? The lagged endogenous variable
FATALITIES(-1) and both immediate and lagged effects of MASSACRES have thus
been included in an effort to determine the resonant effect of recent strike violence
on strike fatalities. MASSACRES is a dummy variable coded “1” for 1914 (Ludlow),
1922 (Herrin), and 1937 (Chicago) and “0” for nonevent years.16 Are they mutative or
inflammatory? Anecdotal evidence suggests that large-scale violent episodes within
particular industries such as the railroads and steel tended toward extended periods
of relative quiescence (Lipold 2003: 191–92). Violence within the coal industry,
however, often seemed to carry the opposite effect (Fishback 1995). In aggregate,
it may have either positive, negative, or no influence.
16. Labeling an event as a “massacre” is an arguably subjective exercise. I have adopted the three events
identified as “labor massacres” by Isaac et al. (2008: 288) that occurred within the immediate context of a
strike/lockout and relevant temporal parameters.
Estimation Procedures
Utilizing FATALITIES and FATALITYRATIO as dependent variables, I have spec-

ified and tested a number of regression models that seek to account for the annual
variation in the pace of strike-related deaths and the causes of strike violence within
the United States. In so doing, I have employed time-series regression analysis, a
technique common to both historical-sociology (Ostrom 1990) and the study of
strike violence within several Western industrialized nations (see, e.g., Grant and
Wallace 1991). All of the equations were computed using the statistical software
package EViews, version 6, including the relevant serial correlation diagnostics.17
As an integer-level “count measure,” all models of FATALITIES were first subjected
to Negative Binomial (NB) estimations. For those models in which the NB disper-
sion parameter was found insignificant at p ࣙ .10, Poisson estimations were utilized
instead (see, e.g., Barron 1992; Isaac and Christiansen 2002; Minkoff 1997).18 All
FATALITYRATIO models were estimated using ordinary least squares (OLS).
Periodization
Models have been estimated for three temporal ranges, 1901–30, 1901–47, and 1947–
70. Estimates for the range 1877 through 1947, as bracketed by the Great Railway
Strike and Taft-Hartley would have been ideal. However, the temporal framework
was delimited by data availability—the lower temporal boundary established by a
paucity of nineteenth-century wage data, and the high end by the upper limits of data
regarding strikebreaking and injunctions (see Appendix). The models for 1901–30
include AFAMSTRKBRKING and INJUNCTIONS, whereas the models for 1901–
47 do not, thereby exchanging theoretical depth for temporal breadth. The models for
1947–70, meanwhile, provide a comparison between the pre– and post–Taft-Hartley
eras.
Regression Results
Turning to the first panel of regression equations presented in table 1,19 most of the
results were consistent with expectations. Changes in union density, the use of strike
breakers, unemployment, and immigration flows were all found to positively influence
strike fatalities. Total and political strikes, modeled separately due to their strong
17. EViews version 6 provides a number of serial correlation diagnostics including several versions of the
Lujung-Box Q (Quantitative Micro Software 2007) and Durbin-Watson—in the OLS estimations. None of
the regression equations included within this paper exhibited problematic patterns of serial correlation—the
Durbin-Watson and Q-statistics having thus been excluded from presentation for sake of brevity.
18. An exception was made for the models included in table 5 as there were an insufficient number of
iterations available to utilize NB estimations for the equations framed from 1947 to 1970.
19. The slope coefficients presented throughout tables 1–3 and 5 have been transformed to yield percentage
change coefficients: i.e., ([exp b] -1) × 100.
TABLE 1. Time-series determinants of strike fatalities, 1901–30
Equations
Independent Variables: (1a) (1b) (1c) (1d)
POLSTRIKES 16.62 24.61 23.72∗ …

CHDENSITYUP 112.42∗ ∗ ∗ 97.64∗ ∗ 101.98∗ ∗ 66.70∗ ∗ ∗
CHDENSITYDOWN 132.56∗ ∗ ∗ 72.60∗ ∗ 75.72∗ ∗ 55.87∗ ∗ ∗
AFAMSTRKBRKING 14.80∗ ∗ ∗ 11.65∗ ∗ 11.34∗ ∗ 7.32∗ ∗ ∗
NAM 11.73 26.00 24.87 …
INJUNCTIONS − 0.54 − 0.73∗ − 0.72 …
UNEMPLOYMENT 53.97∗ ∗ ∗ 43.06∗ ∗ ∗ 44.20∗ ∗ ∗ 21.65∗ ∗ ∗
WAGESDOWN − 15.86∗ − 16.56∗ − 16.61∗ − 8.38∗ ∗ ∗
TOTALIMMIGRANT 1.59∗ ∗ − 0.01 0.11 2.03∗ ∗ ∗
REPUBCONGRESS − 2.66 − 46.52∗ ∗ ∗ − 54.06∗ ∗ ∗ …
REPUBCONGRESS2 … 0.59∗ ∗ ∗ 0.58∗ ∗ ∗ …
WARYEARS … − 43.38 − 39.18 …
FATALITIES (−1) … … 0.35 …
Dispersion Parameter − 0.71∗ ∗ − 1.00∗ ∗ ∗ − 1.01∗ ∗ ∗ …
Constant − 1.05 14.68∗ ∗ 14.40∗ ∗ − 0.12
Log-Likelihood − 104.58 − 100.97 − 100.92 − 192.99
Estimator NB NB NB Poisson
Equations
Independent Variables: (1e) (1f) (1g) (1h)

TOTALSTRIKES 2.10 8.47∗ ∗ 8.52∗ ∗ …
CHDENSITYUP 144.49 48.58 45.54 66.70∗ ∗ ∗
CHDENSITYDOWN 147.55∗ ∗ ∗ 33.21 27.27 55.87∗ ∗ ∗
AFAMSTRKBRKING 15.90∗ ∗ ∗ 22.80∗ ∗ ∗ 23.57∗ ∗ ∗ 7.32∗ ∗ ∗
NAM − 1.69 6.05 7.31 …
INJUNCTIONS − 0.70 − 0.54 − 0.56 …
UNEMPLOYMENT 49.86∗ ∗ ∗ 224.35∗ ∗ ∗ 239.11∗ ∗ ∗ 21.65∗ ∗ ∗
UNEMPLOYMENT2 … − 7.57∗ ∗ ∗ − 8.03∗ ∗ ∗ …
WAGESDOWN − 17.09∗ − 6.86 − 7.01 − 8.38∗ ∗ ∗
TOTALIMMIGRANT 2.23∗ ∗ ∗ 0.39 0.30 2.03∗ ∗ ∗
REPUBCONGRESS − 1.69 − 56.35∗ ∗ ∗ − 57.02∗ ∗ ∗ …
REPUBCONGRESS2 … 0.84∗ ∗ ∗ 0.85∗ ∗ ∗ …
WARYEARS … − 62.45 − 64.16 …
FATALITIES (−1) … … − 0.52 …
Dispersion Parameter − 0.66∗ ∗ − 1.26∗ ∗ ∗ − 1.25∗ ∗ ∗ …
Constant − 0.90 16.11∗ ∗ ∗ − 16.25∗ − 0.12
Log-Likelihood − 105.23 − 97.99 − 97.90 − 192.99
Estimator NB NB NB Poisson
∗
p < .10. ∗ ∗ p < .05. ∗∗∗ p < .01 (two-tailed tests).
correlation, were also positive at statistically significant levels, but only net the effect
of the slight positive curvilinear influence of unemployment20 (eqs. [1f] and [1g])
and/or the mild negative curvilinear influence of congressional Republicans (eq. [1b]).
There is also some evidence that the use of injunctions actually muted strike violence,
explicable perhaps by the fact that many injunctions were granted under the auspices
of either preventing imminent violence and/or restoring law and order. Thus, the most
20. The curvilinear effect of unemployment was not found to be statistically significant in the models also
including political strikes.
TABLE 2. Time-series determinants of strike fatalities, 1901–47
Equations
POLSTRIKES − 3.99∗ ∗ ∗ − 6.35∗ ∗ ∗ − 6.16∗ ∗ ∗ − 7.87∗ ∗ ∗

CHDENSITYUP 49.46∗ ∗ ∗ 46.51∗ ∗ ∗ 46.98∗ ∗ ∗ 59.49∗ ∗ ∗
CHDENSITYDOWN 50.92∗ ∗ ∗ 36.55∗ ∗ ∗ 35.86∗ ∗ ∗ 34.14∗ ∗ ∗
NAM − 1.17 − 3.79 − 3.82∗ − 8.21∗ ∗ ∗
UNEMPLOYMENT 10.02∗ ∗ ∗ 25.89∗ ∗ ∗ 25.05∗ ∗ ∗ 25.45∗ ∗ ∗
UNEMPLOYMENT2 … − 0.62∗ ∗ ∗ − 0.59∗ ∗ ∗ − 0.55∗ ∗ ∗
WAGESDOWN − 9.77∗ ∗ ∗ − 11.77∗ ∗ ∗ − 11.88∗ ∗ ∗ − 14.95
TOTALIMMIGRANT 2.03∗ ∗ ∗ 1.87∗ ∗ ∗ 1.84∗ ∗ ∗ 2.03∗ ∗ ∗
REPUBCONGRESS − 0.86∗ ∗ − 7.15∗ ∗ ∗ − 6.64∗ ∗ − 9.54∗ ∗ ∗
REPUBCONGRESS2 … 7.28∗ ∗ 6.77∗ ∗ 0.11∗ ∗ ∗
WARYEARS … … … 76.71∗ ∗ ∗
FATALITIES (−1) … … 2.24 1.18
Equation Statistics:
Constant 1.45∗ ∗ ∗ 2.88∗ ∗ ∗ 2.72∗ ∗ ∗ 3.24∗ ∗ ∗
Log-Likelihood − 296.87 − 278.10 − 277.81 − 269.78
Estimator Poisson Poisson Poisson Poisson
∗
p ࣘ .10. ∗∗ p ࣘ .05. ∗∗∗ pࣘ .01 (two-tailed tests).
surprising result would be that of the negative influence of declining wages, erstwhile
argued to be a prominent incendiary factor (see, e.g., Grant and Wallace 1991).
Most of these relationships carry through the models expanded to include the years
from 1931 to 1947. The first exception was the dropped statistical significance of
total strikes, the models of which having thus been excluded from table 2 for sake of
brevity. Second, those who generally accepted that the war eras–invoked labor peace
might be surprised to learn that WARYEARS was shown to have a positive influence
on strike fatalities, perhaps indicative of heightened attempts to repress leftist labor
organizations, especially during World War I (see Fusfeld 1984; Goldstein 1978).
Third, the influence of both political strikes and organization of NAM turned decidedly
negative, demonstrative of temporally varying causal parameters associated with these
additional years (see, e.g., Isaac and Lipold 2012). Such suspicions are confirmed by
the evidence presented in table 3. Net the effect of all other variables included within
these models, the years from 1932 to 1947 stand out as the least violent, while those
ranging from 1919 to 1931 were the most so. As discussed in the following text, such
findings seem to affirm existent arguments as to the relevance of historic shifts in the
political opportunity structure.
The causal structures detected in models of FATALITYRATIO were strikingly sim-
ilar to those of FATALITIES, although not all of the models were fit for comparison.
TOTALSTRIKES was altogether excluded from models of FATALITYRATIO be-
cause it formed the denominator of that measure; while neither REPUBCONGRESS2
nor any of the temporal dummies could be included without introducing problematic
levels of serial correlation. Nevertheless, within the somewhat limited scope provided
TABLE 3. Estimations of the effect of temporal

regimes on strike fatalities, 1901–47
Equations
Independent Variables: (3a) (3b) (3c)
POLSTRIKES − 7.12∗ ∗ ∗ − 5.05∗ ∗ ∗ 12.52∗ ∗

CHDENSITYUP 58.61∗ ∗ ∗ 54.87∗ ∗ ∗ 26.03
CHDENSITYDOWN 35.57∗ ∗ ∗ 31.29∗ ∗ ∗ 15.14
NAM − 13.08∗ ∗ ∗ − 11.74∗ 27.93∗ ∗
UNEMPLOYMENT 26.44∗ ∗ ∗ 26.46∗ ∗ ∗ 16.93
UNEMPLOYMENT2 − 0.58∗ ∗ ∗ − 0.47∗ ∗ ∗ 0.42
WAGESDOWN − 15.81∗ ∗ ∗ − 18.04∗ ∗ ∗ − 17.32∗ ∗ ∗
TOTALIMMIGRANT 2.38∗ ∗ ∗ 2.46∗ ∗ ∗ 0.86
REPUBCONGRESS − 6.85∗ ∗ − 7.02∗ ∗ − 11.68
REPUBCONGRESS2 0.08∗ ∗ 0.08∗ ∗ 0.12
WARYEARS 112.33∗ ∗ ∗ 141.40∗ ∗ ∗ 3.48
REGIME2 − 36.33∗ ∗ … …
REGIME3 … 111.69∗ ∗ ∗ …
REGIME4 … … − 98.50∗ ∗ ∗
FATALITIES (−1) 0.15 0.16 0.80
Dispersion Parameter … … − 0.48∗
Constant 2.73∗ ∗ ∗ 2.03∗ ∗ 2.59
Log-Likelihood − 267.05 − 260.94 − 156.58
Estimator Poisson Poisson NB
Equations
Independent Variables: (3d) (3e) (3f)

POLSTRIKES − 0.85 14.10∗ ∗ 11.27∗
CHDENSITYUP 45.55∗ ∗ ∗ 21.92 27.73
CHDENSITYDOWN 23.74∗ ∗ ∗ 20.45 7.40
NAM 1.80 23.03∗ 25.43
UNEMPLOYMENT 22.75∗ ∗ ∗ 16.85 28.32∗ ∗
UNEMPLOYMENT2 − 0.06 − 0.40 − 0.08
WAGESDOWN − 19.23∗ ∗ ∗ − 17.18∗ ∗ ∗ − 22.22∗ ∗ ∗
TOTALIMMIGRANT 1.88∗ ∗ ∗ 1.23 1.31∗
REPUBCONGRESS − 10.67∗ ∗ ∗ − 6.71 − 15.12
REPUBCONGRESS2 0.11∗ ∗ ∗ 0.63 0.16
WARYEARS 105.56∗ ∗ ∗ 8.96 13.93
REGIME2 … − 35.75 340.00∗ ∗
REGIME3 64.64∗ ∗ ∗ … 508.38∗ ∗ ∗
REGIME4 − 85.61∗ ∗ ∗ − 98.28∗ ∗ ∗ …
FATALITIES (−1) 0.12 0.96 0.47
Dispersion Parameter … − 0.49∗ − 0.43∗
Constant − 2.95∗ ∗ ∗ 1.45 0.47
Log-Likelihood − 252.21 − 156.31 − 157.55
Estimator Poisson NB NB
∗
p ࣘ .10. ∗∗ p ࣘ .05. ∗∗∗ p ࣘ .01 (two-tailed tests).
by equations (4a) through (4d), not a single statistically significant finding concerning
the determinants of the relative frequency of strike fatalities contradicted those of the
raw count (see table 4). Indeed, they rather serve to substantiate the validity and reli-
ability of the findings for FATALITIES, especially in regard to the robustness of the
declining union density, strikebreaking, unemployment, and immigration variables.
TABLE 4. Time-series determinants of the relative frequency of

strike fatalities, 1901–31 and 1901–47
Equations
Time Period: 1901–30 1901–47
POLSTRIKES 0.0086 0.0223 − 0.0464 − 0.0613∗

CHDENSITYUP 0.3914∗ 0.3577 0.2128 0.2292∗
CHDENSITYDOWN 1.3113∗ ∗∗ 1.2549∗ ∗ ∗ 0.8101∗ ∗ ∗ 0.8453∗ ∗ ∗
AFAMSTRKBRKING 0.0870∗ 0.0930∗ … …
NAM − 0.1112 − 0.0846 0.0233 0.0209
INJUNCTIONS 0.0004 0.0009 … …
UNEMPLOYMENT 0.2677∗ ∗∗ 0.3874 0.0772∗ ∗ 0.2269∗ ∗ ∗
UNEMPLOYMENT2 … − 0.0106 … − 0.0065∗ ∗
WAGESDOWN − 0.0072 − 0.0184 − 0.0648 − 0.0699∗
TOTALIMMIGRANT 0.0098∗ 0.0093∗ 0.0106∗ ∗ ∗ 0.0095∗ ∗
REPUBCONGRESS − 0.0383∗ − 0.0351∗ − 0.0032 − 0.0054
FATALITYRATIO(−1) − 0.5327∗ ∗∗ − 0.5038∗ ∗ ∗ − 0.2654∗ − 0.3133∗ ∗
Equation Statistics:
Constant 0.6479 − 0.0010 − 0.0206 − 0.2143
Log-Likelihood − 22.24 − 22.05 − 47.58 − 44.76
Estimator OLS OLS OLS OLS
∗
p ࣘ .10. ∗ ∗ p ࣘ .05. ∗ ∗ ∗ p ࣘ .01 (two-tailed tests).
What about the period after 1947? The equations presented in table 5 provide
an opportunity to gauge whether or not the causal structures exhibited prior to the
passage of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 carry through 1970.21 In fact, of all of the
regressors included in the post–Taft-Hartley period, only immigration flows retained
its statistical significance. Yet, even at that, the direction of the relationship reversed
from positive to negative, seemingly suggesting that the flow of immigrants during the
post–World War II economic boom were no longer perceived as a threat by domestic
strikers. While a detailed analysis of the postwar period lies beyond the scope of this
paper, suffice it to say that the causal structures of the pre– and post–Taft-Hartley
periods were clearly dissimilar.
The fact that time matters to our understanding of the fluctuating levels of extreme
strike violence is thus one lesson to glean from the balance of the analysis. So, too, is
the impact of the use of violence. Although the results of the annual lagged fatalities
measure were not found to be statistically significant, those for both the relative
frequency of strike fatalities and massacres were. As recorded in table 6, massacres
were expectably found to make a substantial positive contribution to the overall level
of strike violence during the given years that they occurred (eq. 6a). Their lagged
21. The determinants included in equations (5a) through (5d) have been delimited on the basis of both
their statistical significance as demonstrated in the earlier models and/or the availability of relevant data.
TABLE 5. Time-series determinants of strike fatalities,

1947–70
Equations
CHDENSITYUP − 14.09 1.51 − 22.62 1.06

CHDENSITYDOWN 51.47 38.26 44.37 38.72
UNEMPLOYMENT 12.29 25.11 − 36.86 17.25
UNEMPLOYMENT2 … … 5.89 0.66
TOTALIMMIGRANT − 10.11∗ ∗ − 12.01∗ ∗ ∗ − 10.99∗ ∗ − 11.98∗ ∗
REPUBCONGRESS 0.25 − 0.72 11.83 − 1.22
REPUBCONGRESS2 … … − 0.13 0.01
FATALITIES (−1) … − 17.85 … − 17.69
Constant 2.21 2.95 1.61 3.20
Log-Likelihood − 34.10 − 33.04 − 33.94 − 33.04
∗
p ࣘ .10. ∗ ∗ p ࣘ .05. ∗ ∗ ∗ p ࣘ .01 (two-tailed tests).
TABLE 6. Estimation of the effect of massacres on strike

fatalities, 1901–47
Equations
POLSTRIKES − 7.81∗ ∗ ∗ − 7.65∗ ∗ ∗ − 7.78∗ ∗ ∗ − 7.91∗ ∗ ∗

CHDENSITYUP 48.55∗ ∗ ∗ 57.59∗ ∗ ∗ 57.38∗ ∗ ∗ 58.32∗ ∗ ∗
CHDENSITYDOWN 7.79 47.38∗ ∗ ∗ 35.83∗ ∗ ∗ 31.95∗ ∗ ∗
NAM − 4.44∗ − 9.54∗ ∗ ∗ − 5.88∗ ∗ − 6.67∗ ∗ ∗
UNEMPLOYMENT 20.12∗ ∗ ∗ 23.09∗ ∗ ∗ 27.05∗ ∗ ∗ 29.22∗ ∗ ∗
UNEMPLOYMENT2 − 0.31∗ ∗ − 0.52∗ ∗ ∗ − 0.57∗ ∗ ∗ − 0.63∗ ∗ ∗
WAGESDOWN − 16.45∗ ∗ ∗ − 12.19∗ ∗ ∗ − 15.12∗ ∗ ∗ − 16.22∗ ∗ ∗
TOTALIMMIGRANT 1.94∗ ∗ ∗ 1.91∗ ∗ 2.12∗ ∗ ∗ 2.05∗ ∗ ∗
REPUBCONGRESS − 5.70∗ − 9.27∗ ∗ ∗ − 8.96∗ ∗ ∗ − 8.55∗ ∗ ∗
REPUBCONGRESS2 0.07∗ ∗ 0.10∗ ∗ ∗ 0.10∗ ∗ ∗ 0.10∗ ∗ ∗
WARYEARS 42.14∗ ∗ 95.48∗ ∗ ∗ 78.56∗ ∗ ∗ 100.11∗ ∗ ∗
MASSACRES 116.26∗ ∗ ∗ … … …
MASSACRES (t-1) … − 80.34∗ ∗ ∗ … …
MASSACRES (t-2) … … − 30.46∗ …
MASSACRES (t-3) … … … − 76.62∗ ∗ ∗
Constant 2.28∗ ∗ ∗ 3.57∗ ∗ ∗ 2.92∗ ∗ ∗ 2.81∗ ∗ ∗
Log-Likelihood − 261.31 − 246.87 − 262.10 − 247.70
∗
p < .10. ∗ ∗ p < .05. ∗∗∗ p < .01 (two-tailed tests).
influence, meanwhile, was not only strongly negative, but appears to have persisted
for as much as three years. For the readers’ convenience, this and other key findings
have been summarized in table 7.
TABLE 7. Summary of the key findings
Model: Temporal Window
Variables 1901–30 1901–47 1947–70
Labor Militancy:
Strikes for Union Recognition NS −S …
Rise in Union Density +S +S NS
Decline in Union Density +S +S NS
Employer Intransigence:
NAM Organizing NS −S …
Use of Strikebreakers +S … …
Labor Market Conditions:
Unemployment +S +S NS
Declining Wages −S −S NS
Immigration +S +S −S
Political Opportunity Structure:
Republican Congress NS −S NS
War Years NS −S …
Regime2 … −S …
Regime3 … +S …
Regime4 … −S …
Lagged Massacres … −S …
Note: +S = positive and significant; −S = negative and significant;

NS = nonsignificant
Discussion, Conclusions, New Directions
One century after the investigative US Commission on Industrial Relations was con-
vened, this paper offers the first attempt to subject various hypotheses as to the causes
of strike fatalities within the United States to time-series regression analytics. As an
overarching assessment of the findings presented herein, three themes, in particular,
emerge. First, strike violence increased in association with tightening labor markets.
Second, strike violence was manifest in association with the struggle for and against
unionization. Third, state support mattered.
Labor Market Competition

The long and widely held supposition that labor market competition enhanced the
likelihood of strike violence was well supported by my results. From among the
indicators of “labor market conditions,” measures of both unemployment and immi-
gration (prior to 1947) were consistently found to increase the frequency of strike
fatalities, this despite the fact that rising levels of unemployment actually depressed
the overall level of strike activity during these same years. In a highly commodified
market one’s livelihood is dependent upon paid employment. During periods of high
unemployment, the masses of unemployed constitute what Karl Marx referred to as “a
reserve army of laborers,” which especially during the historical time period analyzed
here, was comprised in part of waves of foreign immigrants and displaced natives.
The “ideal-typical” conflict scenario in regard to labor market tightness thus in-
volved strikers and strike replacements violently engaged in a competition for scarce
employment opportunities. But that model does not in and of itself capture the essence
of American strike violence. Net of the effect of unemployment, both the immigration
flow and strikebreaking measures remained statistically significant in most models,
and vice versa. The violence associated with unemployment, therefore, need not have
been indicative of intraclass conflict; nor, conversely, was the conflict, intraclass or
otherwise, necessarily born of economic desperation and/or destitution. Recall, for
instance, that another measure of working-class duress, a decline in wages, actually
contraindicated strike fatalities. Quite simply, there appears to have been another
motif, aside from economic desperation, sufficient to motivate strikes and precipitate
strike violence, irrespective of the universe for alternative employment opportunities
and economic gain.
The Struggle for and against Unionization

Based upon both the prevailing themes of American labor historiography and regres-
sion results presented in the preceding text, the other factor appears to have been the
struggle for unionization. Labor historians and kindred analysts from within other aca-
demic disciplines have long contended that American corporations have historically
contested unionization more fiercely than their counterparts elsewhere in the Western
industrialized world (see, e.g., Friedman 1988; Gitelman 1973; Jacoby 1991), and that
strikes for unionization were the most likely to become violent (Taft and Ross 1969).
Much emphasis has been placed upon the NAM’s coordinating role in the campaign
against independent trade unions (Griffin et al. 1986); and although the indicators for
“strikes for union recognition” (POLSTRIKES) and “employer mobilization” (NAM)
proved to be neither especially robust in their effects nor conforming to theory, the
measure of “decreasing union density” did.
The indicators of both “increasing union density” and “decreasing union density”
were found to have a positive impact on the pace of strike fatalities: a salient point in
two respects. First, it problematizes the notion that unions, unionists, or at least union
strength breed violence. Second, it creates theoretical space for “elite” as opposed
to “labor violence.” As to the former, antiunion employers and other purveyors of
the antilabor “labor militancy” perspective had sought to stigmatize the unions as
agents of foreign radicalism and violent means (Fusfeld 1984; Wilentz 1984). Even
the “market-reformist perspective,” which sought to look beyond the character of in-
dividuals and groups to the social roots of violence, often framed the proliferation of
strike violence and Socialism as labor’s response to the vagaries of unfettered capitalist
industrialism, that is, “labor violence.” So the rise of strike violence in conjunction
with increasing union density might have seemed to suggest that unionists strategically
employed violence as a means to enhance their growth; while the increase of violence
in association with immigration flows (an arguable source of radicals and radicalism)
and strikebreaker deployments (potential nonunion targets of union aggression) might
also be fashioned as indictments against union strong-arm tactics.
Such a slant, however, does not particularly square with the strong relation between
union decline and strike violence. In deference to the “antimanagement perspective,”
there appears to be a better explanation, namely, that elites employed violence too
(Fusfeld 1984; Goldstein 1978; Sexton 1991; Tilly 1978; Wallace 1970–71). In fact, it
is important to bear in mind that strikers were the most likely victims of strike violence;
and perhaps by corollary, management and/or the array of forces aligned on manage-
ment’s behalf were the most likely to employ violence during labor-management
confrontations (Lipold and Isaac 2009; Tilly 1978; Wallace 1970–71).
That “union density decline” enhanced strike violence lends itself to an interpre-
tation that points to elite use of violence rather than the reverse, and the immigration
measure too, warrants reconsideration. Waves of immigrant workers had become
concentrated within the semi- and unskilled industrial occupations, and the leftist
unions by which they had been organized. If leftist unions were in fact the most likely
to be repressed, then the positive association between immigration and strike fatalities
may well be indicative of that particularly aggressive campaign.
Government Disposition
In creating theoretical space for “elite violence,” in general, and the array of forces
aligned on management’s behalf, in particular, I also call to mind the role of the
state and state intervention. Given the somewhat inconsistent legislative history of
the federal government in regard to labor and unionization (Dubofsky 1995), the
posited association between the state and elite violence and/or repression may seem
inappropriate. Significant examples of both pro- and antilabor laws have indeed been
enacted (Wallace et al. 1988). Yet, when it came to direct and forceful intervention
in labor-management disputes, the state was hardly neutral. Of the more than 1,000
fatalities accounted for by Lipold and Isaac (2009), for instance, not one was known
to have involved the death of a company official at the hands of government forces.
The willingness of government officials to routinely intercede on the behalf of em-
ployers was founded upon their shared apprehension of the labor movement (Friedman
1988). The Great Railway Strike of 1877 initiated a new era of labor relations, one in
which the dual threats of socialism and mass insurgency had been problematized. The
immediate and lasting response was repression. During the Great Railway Strike of
1877, the federal government demonstrated the will to act forcefully, pressing 45,000
militia and 2,000 federal troops into action (Adams 1995: 200). Shortly thereafter,
the army and the militia were retooled as an effective and active strike-policing force
(Cooper 1977). Between the years from 1886 to 1895, a total of more than 75,000
military troops were deployed over the course of 118 government-proclaimed “labor
dispute” interventions (Adams 1995: 201).
Gradually and somewhat opportunistically (Jeffreys-Jones 1974), the federal gov-
ernment came to realize that the laissez-faire doctrine was a greater threat to national
security than organized labor. Net of the effect of all the other factors that had been
considered within the regression models, the likelihood of strike violence was not
only demonstrated to vary through time, but to do so in relation to the level of sup-
port/tolerance that federal officials provided unions. Between the years 1901 and 1947,
the New Deal Era, that is, Regime 4 (1932–47), was both the most labor friendly and
least violent. Regime 3 (1919–31) was both the least labor friendly and most violent.
Regime 2 (1901–18) comprised an era during which various reformist, antiunion, and
laissez-faire agenda clashed with one another. Neither especially pro- nor antilabor,
it also ranked second of the three in terms of the net level of violence. Albeit as a
result of a general refusal to engage picket lines directly or by pressuring employers
to acquiesce, state support mattered.
Toward a Theoretical Synthesis and Beyond

Labor market conditions, the struggle for unionization, and governmental disposition
are thus three empirically grounded components of a composite theoretical model of
American strike violence. I would like yet to make the case for a fourth, their unifying
thread. It is indicated not by any particular regression coefficient, but by the simple
fact that more than 1,000 individuals were killed on American picket lines between
the years 1877 to 1947. Recalling Tilly’s (1978: 188) assessment of the theoretical
significance of various tracers of violence, “The occurrence of damage to persons or
objects gives us some small assurance that at least one of the parties to the collective
action took it seriously.” It is to this deadly “seriousness” of which I now speak. It
was the catalyst, or ethos, that fostered not simply threatening gestures and property
damage, but resolve in the face of death and the will to kill: the willingness to put
one’s life on and for the picket line; and the willingness to take that of someone else. It
was a “struggle for survival,” involving elements of commodified labor, competitive
capital, and a nonreformist state prior to the institutionalization of a well-developed
regime of regulation.
The statistics presented in this paper confirm what has long been presupposed—
that clashes during strikes for union recognition routinely contributed to US strike
violence and deaths. They also suggested that this pattern of violence might not have
been broken without government intervention and enforcement. Congress passed the
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (a.k.a. the Wagner Act) that reiterated the
rights of workers to organize into independent trade unions and collectively bargain
with representatives of their own choosing. In spite of sustained resistance from the
NAM, Wagner’s constitutionality was upheld, the Supreme Court in 1937 having
recognized, “that the statutory regulation of capital-labor relations was necessary to
sustain economic recovery” (Wallace et al. 1988: 7).
Almost immediately, NAM began to lobby for Wagner’s abrogation, eventuating in
congressional passage of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 (Bluestone and Harrison 1982:
136). The legislation included a number of provisions designed to circumscribe the
bargaining purview of existent unions while making it more difficult to form new ones
(Davis 1986: 111). A legal foundation for the postwar institutionalization of labor was
thus effectuated along the lines that the NCF had advocated one-half century earlier.
Collective bargaining agreements between management and conservative unionists
within the nation’s core industrial sectors were encouraged (Isaac and Leicht 1997:
33), while leftist unionists were “left out” (Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin 2003). These
developments combined to reorient labor-management conflicts away from the picket
lines and toward union electoral proceedings, contract negotiations, and government
mediations. The frequency of strike-related fatalities within the United States has
decreased dramatically ever since.
One must nevertheless take care not to overemphasize the impact of Wagner, Taft-
Hartley, and/or other legislative enactments upon the ultimate trajectory of labor-
management conflict. Not only were many dominant US corporations from within the
economy’s core industrial sectors eager to capitalize on their newly found industrial
preeminence and, therefore, more apt to engage unions in collective bargaining than
they had been before (Bluestone and Harrison 1982), but the resultant upward spiral
of wages, productivity, and profit associated with America’s postwar economic boom
obviated many of the distressed “economic conditions” also determined herein to
enhance the likelihood of extreme strike violence.
But then again, the heyday of Pax Americana was relatively short lived, and the
postwar détente between American labor and management has long since come to
an end. Strike violence of the scale and mortality common to the period 1877 to
1947 has not yet recurred. And given the strong positive statistical association that
was found here to have existed between declining union density and strike fatalities
prior to 1947, we may indeed be inclined to speculate that either (1) the Wagner-
Taft-Hartley accords have, in fact, had a profound lasting influence on the pace of US
labor-management violence after all; and/or (2) strikes simply have not been taken
as “seriously” as they once were—in part, perhaps, because they no longer posed the
threat to employers that they once did.
Lingering Issues and Questions

My conclusions have been based upon the most comprehensive count of US strike
fatalities available to date, results of the first attempts to subject preexisting causal
arguments to quantitative historical time-series analysis, and an array of invaluable
if not incalculable insights as provided by American labor historiography, historical
sociology, and social theory. They portray the causes of American strike violence in
empirically grounded but broad strokes. A more detailed and perhaps more profound
understanding of the sociohistorical relevance in regard the causes and consequences
of American strike violence thus awaits. Three issues or research extensions deserve
attention.
First, is the model overgeneralized? Like prominent sociohistorical analyses of the
causes of strike violence within other Western industrialized nations (e.g., Grant and
Wallace 1991; Snyder and Kelly 1976), my regression analyses and inferred conclu-
sions were based upon a national aggregate. Although appropriate as an important first
step toward an enhanced understanding of American strike violence, there are some
indications that at least within the United States interindustry differences should not
be ignored. Strike fatalities were recorded within more than a dozen US industries,
but roughly two-thirds were concentrated within the mines and along the rails (Lipold
and Isaac 2009). While an ideal portrait of US strike violence should capture both its
concentration and heterogeneity, the national aggregate is skewed toward the former.
In so far as social, economic, and workplace conditions varied markedly from one
industry to the next even within the same year, the aggregate results may obscure
significant interindustry differences, if not mask causal mechanisms altogether. There-
fore, an important extension of this research is to analyze a “disaggregated composite”
model of lethal strikes, one that recognizes both the interindustry “skewness” of the
violence and potentially heterogeneous causal mechanisms.22
Second, what were the consequences of the violence for the labor movement, for
industry, and/or for the state? A corollary issue as to the causes of strike violence is
certainly its consequences. Given the fact that industrial reforms were increasingly
implemented throughout the era of American strike violence, it seems reasonable to
speculate as to its effect on the reformist propensities within not only industry, but also
the state (Gamson 1990; Isaac and Lipold 2012; Jeffreys-Jones 1974). It is generally
clear, however, that elites refused to be intimidated: their immediate inclination having
been to first hone and then implement a repressive apparatus. The net effect of elite
repression upon the aggregate pace of strike violence, meanwhile, is a matter of
conjecture. In committing acts of violence, the state quite obviously contributed to
the tally of strike deaths. That there was a secondary dampening effect on either
violent and/or potentially violent strikes remains plausible, if not congruent with
the stultifying effect of massacres depicted herein. Incorporating measures of strike
violence into theories and empirical models of unionization and strike propensity are
thus an important next step. By disaggregating the fatality measures into their “labor
violence” and “elite violence” components, it might also be possible to determine
their effect upon one another, and the prevailing political opportunity structure. Such
advancements may well elucidate a dialectical interrelationship between the causes,
consequences, and context of US strike fatalities (see Isaac and Lipold 2012), that is,
the transformative efficacy of bloodshed.
Third, what are the implications for future comparative-historical analysis? The
results presented herein neither strongly confirm nor refute existent quantitative anal-
yses of strike violence in France (Shorter and Tilly 1971), Italy (Snyder and Kelly
1976), or Canada (Grant and Wallace 1991). From among my key findings, the US
case is the first for which the economic contextual variable unemployment was found
significant. Strikes for union recognition, meanwhile, were previously found to be a
significant determinant in Canada, but neither France nor Italy. The American results
support Grant and Wallace in this regard and also indirectly affirm their conclusions
regarding the significance of workers’ skill levels,23 but contradict their findings on
wages. While there appears to be some basis for consensus between the United States
and Canada, it is important to bear in mind that Grant and Wallace analyzed the years
from 1958 to 1967, a period following the postwar institutionalization of Canadian
labor—problematic in that this paper clearly demonstrated that the causal mechanisms
22. Southworth and Stepan-Norris (2009) detailed similar concerns regarding measures of union density.
23. This is true at least in so far as one is willing to assume that unskilled workers were more likely to
feel economically threatened by strikebreakers and immigrant labor.
of lethal strike violence during the pre– and post–World War II eras within the United
States differed.
Also at issue, this was the only study of the four: (1) not to model situational
determinants such as size and duration of particular strikes—unfortunate in that they
were found significant in the three other studies; and (2) to key in exclusively on
the causal parameters of strike fatalities, the most extreme form of strike violence.
The situation encourages further research into both the American case—including
the situational determinants of fatal and nonfatal violent strikes during the pre– and
post–Taft-Hartley eras; and international patterns of extreme strike violence.
Only through cross-national comparison can that which is truly “exceptional” about
American labor be discerned. In a world of increasingly globalized competition, it
seems quite likely that other nations either have been or will become just as “serious”
about their economic development as the United States;24 and it should come as
no surprise if in another 30 years the United States has been supplanted from its
dubious distinction by what at present appears a most unlikely challenger. Then again,
the United States may not surrender its title quite so readily. As neoconservative
movements continue to erode the political and economic bases of the post–World
War II labor-management accords, who is to say that a new era of lethal contestation
may not be in the offing?
Appendix
Source availability and descriptive statistics for nondichotomous
variables
Max. Min. Std.

Variable N Availability Mean Med. Value Value Dev.
Dependent:
FATALITIES 94 1877–1970 15.90 8.00 102.00 0.00 19.26
Labor Militancy:
TOTALSTRIKES 90 1881–1970 27.42 28.70 57.16 4.76 14.44
POLSTRIKES 67 1881–1947 6.31 5.33 27.28 0.32 5.15
CHDENSITYUP 73 1898–1970 0.66 0.30 4.4 0.00 0.88
CHDENSITYDOWN 74 1898–1970 0.32 0.00 4.0 0.00 0.66
Employer Intransigence:
AFAMSTRKBRKING 41 1890–1930 3.11 1.79 17.7 0.00 3.67
NAM 53 1895–1947 4.32 3.38 16.00 0.39 3.52
INJUNCTIONS 51 1881–1931 58.24 49.50 272.25 0.00 61.01
Market Conditions:
UNEMPLOYMENT 81 1890–1970 7.12 5.12 24.9 1.2 5.56
WAGESDOWN 47 1901–47 2.19 0.00 15.68 0.00 3.72
TOTALIMMIGRANT 94 1877–1970 38.18 30.54 128.5 2.31 29.63
Political Opportunity Structure:
REPUBCONGRESS 94 1877–1970 46.37 46.69 68.05 19.85 10.59
24. On October 11, 2011, for instance, the Wall Street Journal reported the death of a strik-
ing miner in Indonesia as a result of a clash between laborers and police (www.wsj.com/articles/
SB10001424052970203499704576621912973220764).
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Striking Deaths at Their Roots Assaying The Social Determinants of Extreme Labor Management Violence in Us Labor History18771947

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24 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Social Science History 38, Winter 2014, pp. 541–575

Fatally violent encounters would continue to mar labor-management relations within

FIGURE 1. US strike fatalities per year, 1870–1970

Profiling US Strike Mortality

2. Lipold and Isaac (2009: 192).

Data Utility: Strike Fatalities as Dependent Variable

FIGURE 2. US strike fatalities per 100 total strikes, 1880–1970

Labor Militancy Variables

Employer Intransigence Variables

Political Opportunity Variables

WARYEARS. World War I inaugurated an era of unprecedented cooperation and

REGIME1. The remaining dichotomous variables represent a sequence of tem-

THREAT LEVEL. Finally, what better indicator as to the likelihood of aggression

Utilizing FATALITIES and FATALITYRATIO as dependent variables, I have spec-

TABLE 1. Time-series determinants of strike fatalities, 1901–30

Independent Variables: (1a) (1b) (1c) (1d)

POLSTRIKES 16.62 24.61 23.72∗ …

Independent Variables: (1e) (1f) (1g) (1h)

TABLE 2. Time-series determinants of strike fatalities, 1901–47

Independent Variables: (2a) (2b) (2c) (2d)

POLSTRIKES − 3.99∗ ∗ ∗ − 6.35∗ ∗ ∗ − 6.16∗ ∗ ∗ − 7.87∗ ∗ ∗

TABLE 3. Estimations of the effect of temporal

Independent Variables: (3a) (3b) (3c)

POLSTRIKES − 7.12∗ ∗ ∗ − 5.05∗ ∗ ∗ 12.52∗ ∗

Independent Variables: (3d) (3e) (3f)

TABLE 4. Time-series determinants of the relative frequency of

Time Period: 1901–30 1901–47

Independent Variables: (4a) (4b) (4c) (4d)

POLSTRIKES 0.0086 0.0223 − 0.0464 − 0.0613∗

TABLE 5. Time-series determinants of strike fatalities,

Independent Variables: (4a) (4b) (4c) (4d)

CHDENSITYUP − 14.09 1.51 − 22.62 1.06

TABLE 6. Estimation of the effect of massacres on strike

Independent Variables: (5a) (5b) (5c) (5d)

POLSTRIKES − 7.81∗ ∗ ∗ − 7.65∗ ∗ ∗ − 7.78∗ ∗ ∗ − 7.91∗ ∗ ∗

TABLE 7. Summary of the key findings

Model: Temporal Window

Variables 1901–30 1901–47 1947–70

Note: +S = positive and significant; −S = negative and significant;

Discussion, Conclusions, New Directions

Labor Market Competition

The Struggle for and against Unionization

Toward a Theoretical Synthesis and Beyond

Lingering Issues and Questions

Max. Min. Std.

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